Time travel stories never work logistically. But not because John Connor sent his own father back in time to impregnate Sarah, that's the worst example of time travel not making sense. If John hadn't sent his dad back in time, Sarah would have just farked someone else and he would have been John Connor. And he probably would have been a better John Connor than the whiny douchebag we wound up with.

In closing, time travel stories are lame. But Summer Glau is hot.

I refuse to think that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's theory regarding "The Ballpoint Disappearances" is false.

Considering how many of my pens disappear, it has to be true. There can be no other explanation.

See also: "Applied Phlebotinum" and "Quantum Flux."

Mugato: Time travel stories never work logistically. But not because John Connor sent his own father back in time to impregnate Sarah, that's the worst example of time travel not making sense. If John hadn't sent his dad back in time, Sarah would have just farked someone else and he would have been John Connor. And he probably would have been a better John Connor than the whiny douchebag we wound up with.

In closing, time travel stories are lame. But Summer Glau is hot.

Exactly. Terminator Time Travel creates an alternative timeline, not alters the existing one. And as shown in the show, even later time travelers can interact with you and have different memories.

/I prefer Lena Heady.

Discworld is not science fiction.

Asa Phelps: Discworld is not science fiction.

No, but how could you leave off the Great A'tuin?

Well, clearly, you cannot travel back in time, or someone would have already done so and visited us. But maybe you can travel forward in time. There is no way to disprove that possibility.

"The ship doesn't move, I move the universe around the ship" has been done in everything from 2009's Star Trek, to older Trek episodes, and many many many sci-fi books.

In fact, in a 1980's Star Trek book called Enterprise the world ships occupants say the same thing.

Three Crooked Squirrels: Well, clearly, you cannot travel back in time, or someone would have already done so and visited us. But maybe you can travel forward in time. There is no way to disprove that possibility.

I think I may be able to travel forward in time. I have this magical chair. When I sit in it, it's usually about 8 AM, when I get out of it the time has changed and it's then 4PM (or time to take a piss)

But that doesn't mean that every scientific idea expressed in science fiction is automatically true.

Oh OK, because that was my first assumption. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

How about pocket doors that work? Fakiest part of sci-fi I've ever seen.

Seriously? That's the best you've got? Read some Peter Hamilton some time.

Three Crooked Squirrels: Well, clearly, you cannot travel back in time, or someone would have already done so and visited us.

There's a GOP joke in there somewhere...

I've always thought time travel theories should include parallel universes. Mix it up a bit.

Three Crooked Squirrels: Well, clearly, you cannot travel back in time, or someone would have already done so and visited us. But maybe you can travel forward in time. There is no way to disprove that possibility.

Reminds me of that part of "Idiocracy" where he's trying to figure out if he'd exist if time travel existed.

Forgot_my_password_again: 5. Dark Matter is Linked Through a Single Nonlocal Particle

NO, single Nonlocal Metaparticle.

Loser.

Melllvar, is that you?

Mugato: Time travel stories never work logistically.

Not true.

All stories are really time travel stories. Otherwise everything would happen at once without cause and effect.

And since time goes one way easily enough in the equations, it's easy to imagine it going backwards as well.

Now what you have to think of is what happens when you go back? Did it all happen already? (One timeline.) Or has is all changed (New timeline)

Either way, you can't have a paradox. I go back in time to go buttfark myself. In one type it's always been that way so I'd have been farked and so go on to do the farking. In the other kind, it's a different me so we could do anything we wanted, like go pick up 5 more copies and make a volley ball team.

Three Crooked Squirrels: Well, clearly, you cannot travel back in time, or someone would have already done so and visited us. But maybe you can travel forward in time. There is no way to disprove that possibility.

1) I travel forward in time everyday ... it is a bit slow ... about 24hrs/day
2) people travel back in time all the time, but the time patrol keeps them from farking with history

doglover: All stories are really time travel stories. Otherwise everything would happen at once without cause and effect.

I used to have one of the original Buckaroo Banzai T-Shirts. The wording on the back was "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen all at once. -B. Banzai"

dennysgod: [mimg.ugo.com image 288x288]

I think Fry being his own Grandfather is weirder then the Terminator time traveling schtick.

amateurs
time enough for love did this before you were born, in all time lines

there are a ton of well done time travel stories, some old and some new
the forever war (forward only time travel)
time patrol (bunch of short stories and a couple longer ones) (dealt with the alternate universe/timeline issues)
Time Travelers Never Die, mcdevitt, (always a good read)

Three Crooked Squirrels: Well, clearly, you cannot travel back in time, or someone would have already done so and visited us. But maybe you can travel forward in time. There is no way to disprove that possibility.

Alright, let's go over this again....

Traveling to the past creates a NEW timeline, one where you have suddenly appeared in the alternative timeline that has diverged from YOUR timeline at the precise moment you came out in the "past". It's the "multiverse" concept of reality, and afaik, it's the one that seems to have the most support as a concept of reality (just the multiple timelines, not specifically anything about the possibility of time travel)

Want to kill your own grandparents as children? Go ahead. No consequences. The past, in time travel, is a sandbox. Change the past in any way you see fit, then travel ahead (in the same timeline) and witness the result, then travel ACROSS to your own timeline's "present" and report your findings.

While this would make for an awesome plot device, most filmmakers shoot for the idiotic "single timeline" device.

I will also add that the multiverse model reflects a universe with free will far better than a "single timeline" universe. Just going hippy-dippy for a second, what if our consciousnesses can traverse to adjacent universes as they split (as they would split, on every "tick" of time at the quantum level)?